Our PACE event series gives us the opportunity to hear from those at the forefront of digital, and for them to share their insights and experience with a highly engaged audience of their peers. The series takes a look at the intersection of marketing, technology and media, with past events covering topics such as the future of content, data, privacy, marketing automation and AI, with speakers joining us from Amazon, Oracle, Sage, Zone (Congnizant), Dell, Culture Trip, and more. They’re an opportunity to hear thought provoking ideas and always inspire a lively discussion.
The next instalment of PACE, on Thursday, is set to be no different. We’ll be taking a look at the emerging trends and technologies set to disrupt our industry in the coming year ahead and beyond. With this in mind, we’ve taken the opportunity to get to know the awesome speakers we have joining us on the day, and gain a bit of insight into how they see the future of digital shaping up.
Our final speaker in the series is someone we know quite well, it’s our own David Lockie. David’s been quietly working away on his 2020 Vision talk, honing his insight into what the future holds, and how we can all look to get there a little bit faster.
Always exciting to hear where his thoughts are leading, and what direction it will take us as a company and the services we offer our clients.
1. What emerging trend or technology are you most excited about heading into 2020?
Web3 as a concept of the ‘web out of the screen’ – so a combination of bots, mixed reality, drones, blockchain, ai, etc. I love seeing the early signs of this new world.
2. What’s your thoughts on brand purpose?
Brand purpose is becoming ever more important. In fact, not just brand purpose, but values, organisational structure and governance too. In a world where income is limited and possibilities to spend it are endless, people want to feel good about their purchases. That includes things like quality, projected length of life and how the vendor behaves as a business.
3. What does your ideal client look like?
Ambitious growth stage, scale-up or enterprise clients, either publishers or brands that act like publishers, using content to fuel the customer journey. We really enjoy working with legacy enterprise where we can add a ton of value through new thinking, strategic input and digital transformation but equally love to get on board with growth stage and scale ups – digitally native brands who know instinctively what content can do for their business.
4. Are we more or less connected than 50 years ago? And thoughts?
We’re more connected today than we’ve ever been, but those connections are different. One of my favourite quotes is that every village has always had an idiot, but that it took the internet to bring them all together. What’s true for idiots is true for vegans, crossfitters, wiccans and DIY enthusiasts.
But it definitely feels like the age of smartphones is making us less connected (read “present”) with our family, friends and immediate neighbours.
I am hopeful that this is a temporary trend and that as Web3 comes around, we’ll get better at connecting with people in ways that suffer right now, as well as gaining access to the global community, the global economy.
5. What does the future of work look like to you?
The future of work – to me – looks a lot like work for passion and for more directly human purposes – like art, creativity and solving problems like inequality, re-training people, stewarding our planet and questing for new heights of social cohesion and progress towards our common goals.
Work will become optional as robots, automation and AI create wealth beyond imagination.
6. If you could introduce one law tomorrow – what would it be?
Decriminalise and tax all drugs.
7. Delete Facebook – yes/no?
No – it doesn’t matter anyway, they have an account for everyone on the planet.
8. Favorite meme of 2019?
The Distracted Boyfriend meme – seen so many great takes on that.
9. In one word, how would you sum up the value that Angry Creative offer?
We help our clients do big, difficult and interesting things with WordPress that support their growth ambitions.
9.1 One word.
Growth.
10. Favourite SciFi movie?
Can I go a book instead? Three Body Problem by Cixin Liu.
And that concludes the end of our PACE Talks. We’re looking forward to seeing everyone at Ace Hotel in Shoreditch, for PACE: 2020 Vision. A huge thanks to all the speakers for their time in sharing their thoughts with us.